Joint Commitee on Finance Votes to Create Regional Authorities to Oversee Milwaukee County Transit, KRM
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Milwaukee WI– Today the Joint Committee on Finance voted to allow Milwaukee County to form its own regional transit authority with the ability to levy a one percent sales tax for transit, parks and recreation, emergency medical services (EMS) and public safety services for the City of Milwaukee. The committee also voted to establish a three county Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee (KRM) rail authority to oversee and fund the KRM commuter rail with a rental car fee.
The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority (RTA), created in the 2005-2007 state budget, was required to study and make recommendations to the Governor and State Legislature regarding transit operations and the KRM commuter rail project. After years of research and study, the RTA submitted a recommendation on November 15 of last year to form a permanent three-county RTA to oversee all existing transit, build the KRM and levy up to one-half percent dedicated sales tax funding, removing transit from the property tax rolls. Many of these recommendations were included in the Governor’s budget proposal.
A KRM authority, as recommended by the Joint Finance Committee compromises the ability to secure federal funds for the KRM based upon previous feedback from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). Failure to address the funding challenges of the Racine and Kenosha transit systems and the questionable short and long-term viability of a rental car fee funding source were both cited as significant disadvantages to a successful New Starts capital grant application for the KRM.
“The fact that today we made initial steps toward securing dedicated sales tax funding for some of our local transit systems, as well as creating the KRM commuter rail, tells us the legislature sees transit as critical to the success of our region and worked hard to include it in the state budget, but what they did was inadequate to meet the needs of the entire region,” said RTA chairman Karl Ostby. “Based upon our research over the past several years, we still contend that a dedicated sales tax for all regional transit systems and corresponding property tax offset should be implemented by one oversight authority across the region.”
“We still have several major concerns in that the current proposal doesn’t address the urgent funding needs of Racine and Kenosha’s transit systems, and does not guarantee federal funding support for the KRM,” stated Ostby. “However, we believe the end result was a clear reflection of the level of political will to make this happen.”
About the Southeastern Wisconsin RTA
The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority (RTA) was created by the Wisconsin State Legislature and Governor in July 2005 to serve Kenosha, Milwaukee, and Racine counties. The RTA is responsible for identifying a permanent, dedicated funding source for the local share of capital and operating costs for commuter rail and public transit in the region.
Posted @ 12:30 p.m.
